Techniques for making conventional foamed materials, such as foamed polymer plastic materials, have been well known for many years. Standard techniques for such purpose normally use chemical or physical blowing agents. The use of chemical agents is described, for example, by Lacallade in the text, "Plastics Engineering," Vol. 32, June 1976 which discusses various chemical blowing agents, which agents are generally low molecular weight organic compounds which decompose at a critical temperature and release a gas (or gases) such as nitrogen, carbon dioxide, or carbon monoxide. Techniques using physical agents include the introduction of a gas as a component of a polymer charge or the introduction of gases under pressure into molten polymer. Injection of a gas into a flowing stream of molten plastic is described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,796,779 issued to Greenberg on Mar. 12, 1976. Such earlier used and standard foaming processes produce voids or cells within the plastic materials which are relatively large, e.g., on the order of 100 microns, or greater, as well as relatively wide ranges of void fraction percentages, e.g., from 20%-90% of the parent material. The number of voids per unit volume is relatively low and often there is a generally non-uniform distribution of such cells throughout the foamed material. Such materials tend to have relatively low mechanical strengths and toughness and there is an inability to control the dielectric constant thereof.
In order to improve the mechanical properties of such standard cellular foamed materials, a microcellular process was developed for manufacturing foamed plastics having greater cell densities and smaller cell sizes. Such a process is described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,473,665 issued on Sep. 25, 1984 to J. E. Martini-Vredensky et al. The improved technique provides for presaturating the plastic material to be processed with a uniform concentration of a gas under pressure and the provision of a sudden induction of thermodynamic instability in order to nucleate a large number of cells. For example, the material is presaturated with the gas and maintained under pressure at its glass transition temperature. The material is suddenly exposed to a low pressure to nucleate cells and promote cell growth to a desired size, depending on the desired final density, thereby producing a foamed material having microcellular voids, or cells, therein. The material is then quickly further cooled, or quenched, to maintain the microcellular structure.
Such a technique tends to increase the cell density, i.e., the number of cells per unit volume of the parent material, and to produce much smaller cell sizes than those in standard cellular structures. The microcellular process described tends to provide cell sizes that are generally smaller than the critical sizes of flaws that preexist in polymers so that the densities and the mechanical properties of the materials involved can be controlled without sacrificing the mechanical properties of some polymers, such as the mechanical strength and toughness of the polymer. The resulting microcellular foamed materials that are produced, using various thermoplastics and thermosetting plastics, tend to have average cell sizes in the range of 3 to 10 microns, with void fractions of up to 50% of the total volume and maximum cell densities of about one billion (10.sup.9) voids per cubic centimeter of the parent material.
Further work in producing microcellular foamed plastic material is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,761,256 issued on Aug. 2, 1988 to Hardenbrook et al. As set forth therein, a web of plastic material is impregnated with an inert gas and the gas is diffused out of the web in a controlled manner. The web is reheated at a foaming station to induce foaming, the temperature and duration of the foaming process being controlled prior to the generation of the web to produce the desired characteristics. The process is designed to provide for production of foamed plastic web materials in a continuous manner. The cell sizes in the foamed material appear to lie within a range from 2 to 9 microns in diameter.
It is desirable to obtain improved foamed materials which will provide even smaller cell sizes, e.g., 1.0 micron or less, and much higher cell densities as high as several thousand trillions of voids per cubic centimeter, i.e., on the order of 10.sup.15, or so, voids per cubic centimeter of the parent material, for example. Such materials should also have a capability of providing a wide range of void fraction percentages from very high void fractions (low material densities) up to 90%, or more, to very low void fractions (high material densities) down to 20%, or less.
Further, it is desirable to be able to produce microcellular plastics at or near ambient temperature, so as to eliminate the need to heat the plastic during the process thereby simplifying the manufacturing process. Moreover, it is further desirable to increase the speed at which a fluid is dissolved in a polymer so that the overall time of the foaming process can be significantly reduced so as to increase the rate of production of the foamed material.
No processes used or proposed for use to date have been able to provide foamed materials having such extremely small cell sizes, such extremely high cell densities and such a wide range of material densities that provide improved material characteristics. Nor have techniques been proposed to obtain such materials at ambient temperature and at increased production rates.